


full draw

by mstigergun



Series: Inglorious [11]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Friendship, Gen, post-haven trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 07:11:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4778234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mstigergun/pseuds/mstigergun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Leonid’s throat is tight, the cold air aching in his lungs as he hauls in deep breaths. Frantic, almost, as though he’s not in the small practice yard, as if he’s not in Skyhold but back at Haven. In that desperate, ugly moment when he was certain –</i>
</p><p>
  <i>All of them, dead. Slipped right between his fingers while the world fell to ruin. He had rained down arrows on their assailants, had known it to be futile. All of them, surely dead.</i>
</p><p>Haven leaves its marks, and Skyhold offers a cold comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	full draw

Leonid hauls back on the bowstring, shoulder a tight ache, and looses an arrow. It splits the cold air and buries itself deep in the straw-stuffed dummy, which now looks more like a pincushion than a corrupted Templar, though still he can see the red paint meant to stand in for the sword on its chest. Even through the bristling arrows, past the fletching of each bolt.

Cullen wouldn’t have been pleased when this cluster was first erected, but then it’s hard to argue with the sentiment after Haven. Perhaps it’s why these targets have been stuffed behind the tavern: less likely to upset those still obstinately _devout_ , those who hadn’t _seen_ the horror, the –

Leonid blots the memory out. His hands move unthinkingly to his quiver and he notches another arrow. Sets it loose again.

This time he catches the target to the back right, a bolt through the throat.

Something he’s rather good at as it turns out. How proud Alla would be.

The gray sky overhead looks soft as goose feathers; the flakes that drift down are nearly as downy. Already, they’ve melted against his skin, leaving him dotted with water and chilled in the biting air. His hands sting in the cold, fingers red and stiff, but still he pulls out another arrow and sets it free.

Again, and again, and again. Each bolt finds home. Each one capable of bringing death. One to the throat, another to the heart, one in an eye socket, one in the gut – that would be slow, bleeding out across the snow, but it would still do the trick.

Behind him, the sound of a boot on the pillowy snow, muffled. Leonid half-turns his head and spots a familiar broad-shouldered man picking his way across the narrow yard. The dull light of day catches on Sacha’s shoulderguards.

Still, he wears his Templar armour.

Leonid’s hand stills, fingers holding the arrow in place against the bowstring. He looks back at his targets, rubs his nose against his shoulder, and then buries the bolt in the middle of the nearest one’s straw-stuffed chest.

“I see you’re practicing,” says Sacha when he’s near enough to speak in that quiet way he does. The tone of voice that seems to suit these blighted early hours so well. “I don’t mean to interrupt.”

Leonid shrugs, grabbing another arrow – he’s running low and will need to yank the ones he’s already shot out of the targets soon. Which he’s already done several times over; he must have shot hundreds so far. Unthinking, just one after the other after the other while the cold burned his skin. Made his fingers clumsy. He was up with the first light of dawn and in the yard before the grit was entirely rubbed from his eyes.

Normally he would object to being up this early on principle alone, but with so many of the Inquisitor’s agents heading out across Ferelden and Orlais before noon, he’d thought –

It doesn't matter what he’d thought.

“It turns out that Sera’s a better shot than I am,” says Leonid, pivoting to catch one of the targets that hangs from the edge of the tavern. Meant, he imagines, to imitate the assassins that might spring from nowhere, or the fluttering Venatori mages who seem more paper than flesh. “Clearly, that can’t be allowed to stand. I’ve an archer’s shoulders; she’s nothing more than piss and vinegar, so if I can’t _outshoot_ her, I’m doing something wrong. Hard as that may be to believe.”

Sacha is quiet, standing next to Leonid in the cold morning air. A steady presence, one that Leonid’s missed, if he’s being honest with himself. One he may have more cause to miss, should –

Leonid pauses to swipe the meltwater from his cheeks. To push his damp hair off his forehead. “You’re leaving for the Western Approach,” he says, leaning his bow against the side of the tavern as he rubs his hands together. Tries to bring some of the circulation back to the tips of his numb fingers. “In what – an hour? You’re already in your armour, which means it must be soon. So what in the Void are you doing _here_ , with _me_? No doubt there are more important things to be done. More important people to see – like that lovely new _mage_ of yours.”

He doesn’t bother looking to see if his words have found a mark, instead staring furiously at the targets across the gray yard. Snow dusts their shoulders and foreheads, gathers along the shafts of his arrows.

It’s clear he’s been here for awhile.

Leonid sniffs.

“You are important,” says Sacha, quiet.

“Am I?” asks Leonid. He shoots a quick look at Sacha, whose forehead is creased, whose dark eyes are soft and sad and _concerned_.

Leonid huffs out a tiny, bitter laugh around the tightness in his throat. “Everyone’s _leaving_. You and Eloise are off to the Approach. The Inquisitor’s going to try and tame the Exalted Plains. Sera’s going too. And Basten –” He stops, shifts his weight from foot to foot, toes cold and damp inside his boots. “Kata-Meraad heads for the Storm Coast to deal with our little _darkspawn_ problem.”

“You will depart for Amaranthine within the week,” Sacha says, head tilted to one side. “Or so I’d heard. Am I mistaken?”

Leonid blinks the snowflakes from his eyelashes. He picks up his bow again. “No, you’re not mistaken. I head to a _ball_ on behalf of the Inquisitor with a retinue of soldiers who’ll make their demonstration and adequately scare the comtesse while I ingratiate myself and the Inquisition to our hosts. How I’ll manage a _ball_ when my – _compatriots_ fight Venatori,” he looses one arrow, “or the undead,” a second, “or _darkspawn_ ,” the third, “remains unclear. I shall struggle valiantly, though. Try not to choke on canapes or drink the poisoned punch.”

Sacha is silent for a moment, watching. Always _watching_ with that _soft_ look of his. It’s enough to make something prickle within Leonid’s chest, uncomfortable.

“This is very difficult for you,” Sacha says finally.

Leonid shoots him a dark look. “What? Attending a ball – _well_ , it’s hardly the sort of thing I like to do but I expect I’ll survive. Maker knows my mother nearly worked herself to the bone trying to get me to attend the balls in Ostwick. _It’s your duty, Lenya_ , she’d cry. To dance with the fluttering girls and powdered boys and ancient dowagers while Mother tried to marry me off. If only she’d known that she should have been appealing to my _religious_ devotion, rather any vague sense of _familial obligation_. How delighted she would be.”

“Leonid.”

He lets another cluster of arrows loose, one after the other, the muscles of his forearm tight.

Again, “Leonid,” says Sacha. The warrior steps closer. His hand finds Leonid’s shoulder, which _aches_ and _burns_ all at once. The weight of Sacha’s palm is one that shouldn’t hurt but it _does_ , like pressing a bruise still purpled and swollen. A hurt that has nothing to do with the sinew of Leonid’s muscles and everything to do with what it _means_.

“ _What_ ,” he snarls, pivoting to stare at his –

His friend. Sacha’s stare is as gentle as always, soft as raven’s wings. His hand is warm, the few curls that have escaped the knot at the back of his head like shadows against his dark skin.

Of course Sacha is his friend, but that’s a dangerous position to hold – for both of them.

Leonid’s throat is tight, the cold air aching in his lungs as he hauls in deep breaths. Frantic, almost, as though he’s not in the small practice yard, as if he’s not in Skyhold but back at Haven. In that desperate, ugly moment when he was certain –

All of them, dead. Slipped right between his fingers while the world fell to ruin. He had rained down arrows on their assailants, had known it to be futile. All of them, surely dead.

But they hadn’t been. They survived and clawed their way to this blighted castle in the middle of the damned Frostbacks and had scrounged their way to something like _safety_. Like a tentative _security_.

Only to be cast to the four winds, to be scattered across Thedas in a mad scramble to keep a step or two ahead of their enemy. And it isn’t that Leonid doesn’t _understand_. He certainly doesn’t resent the Inquisitor, or the Inquisition, or this half-mad venture of theirs but –

The Void looms so very large in Leonid’s mind that he might as well be back in Haven, eardrums hounded by the pounding of wings, the shouts of people who had once been Templars, the screams of those who were lost. They all walk so very close to the edge of ruin in this desperate effort to save the whole world that he can’t quite shake the same _feeling_. It’s too close, the edge of a loss larger than he can fathom. Near enough to shake him to his core.

All of that, and Leonid attends a ball.

He hauls in another hard breath, cold air prickling his throat like needles. His knuckles are white around his bow.

“I wanted to say goodbye,” says Sacha, steady. His thumb moves against the shape of Leonid’s shoulder, a comforting thing that Leonid should find – weak, but instead leans into despite himself. “And to see if you might like a hug.”

Leonid laughs then, the sound jagged. “A _hug_ ,” he huffs. “I may be fit only to send to _parties_ , but I’m hardly a child. I – I _killed_ people. I can take care of myself. I don’t need – I don’t –”

He bites it off.

“I am sorry that you had to,” murmurs Sacha, hand still a steady weight against Leonid’s shoulder even as his shoulders soften – a downward line to match the shape of his mouth. “I had hoped you wouldn’t.”

It’s something Leonid wishes as well, when he wakes in the middle of the night to the memory of blood spattered across his face, the gurgling of his arrow finding the wet cartilage of a throat, the wide-eyed slide of his enemies into death. He would do anything to make himself numb to _that_ , even if he has to stand in the courtyard all day and blighted night.

He stares up at his friend, chest tight. The snow had started to collect in the ridges of Sacha’s shoulderplates, flecking the tight curls of his hair, gathering in his dark eyelashes. In the distance, Leonid can hear the sounds of boots across stone, horses pawing the cold earth as they’re readied for the trips. Voices buzzing endlessly as the various parties gather and prepare for their journeys across the continent.

Soon, the Inquisitor will leave the keep to speak with all of those preparing to throw themselves into peril to see the Inquisition to success. They all run headlong into danger to avoid the destruction they tasted in Haven.

It’s noble but –

Terrifying. Enough to choke him on darkness and panic and the fear of losing more _yet_.

Leonid sighs, and it sounds small and wounded even to his own ears. A startled noise. He tosses his bow to the side, fingers stiff with cold and reluctance, peering hard through the soft snow and gray light around them. There’s no one, as if the world is narrowed down to the two of them and the unease smoldering in Leonid’s gut. This unending, desperate panic, which makes him _weak_ and _pathetic_ and –

But there’s no one around, all those who are foolish enough to be up at this time of day gathered in or around the courtyard. Even the quartermaster is there, having left after Leonid emptied his first quiver.

There’s no one, and he needs –

Leonid swallows. “ _Yes_ ,” he says finally, hardly more than a breath. “I would.”

And at first Leonid thinks Sacha won’t have heard, but Sacha folds Leonid against his chest after the span of a heartbeat, arms tucking Leonid firmly against his warm body. For a moment, Leonid feels something tremble, panicked, against his ribs; a little uneasy breath leaves his lips, and then –

It’s familiar, this. How Sacha smells, the feel of his armour, the warmth of his body. Different than before, but –

His eyes flutter shut, fingers tangling themselves into knots against Sacha’s armour. If he listens very, very closely, he can imagine hearing Sacha’s heartbeat – loud and steady and unrelenting. The sort of heart that will beat forever, Leonid thinks, sucking in a long breath as snow melts against the back of his neck. Sacha’s jaw rests for a moment against Leonid’s forehead, the metal of his breastplate cold although his breath is warm against Leonid’s skin.

He lets himself feel this for a moment. For another one still, to sink into it as if a warm bath, this thing he should not feel. This thing he knows better than to permit himself. Then, in fits and starts, Leonid gathers up the pieces of himself and starts setting them to order. He moves past the ache of his shoulder, the cold hurt in his fingers, and the unnamed feeling that saw him appearing in the courtyard in the gray light of dawn.

He pushes _past_ that and blinks himself back to his usual state, eyes opening as his heart steadies. “If you tell anyone about this,” Leonid says, “I _will_ shoot you. I know _how_ and you would _never_ see it coming.”

A rumble inside of Sacha’s chest, warm as heartstones after a fire. “Then I shall have to keep your secret. I have heard you are very dangerous around your allies.”

Leonid snorts, pushing himself away from Sacha and rolling his shoulders in a long stretch. “It’s true,” he says. “You know me: breaking hearts, shooting large men.”

Sacha watches him, the skin around his eyes crinkling. “I _do_ know you,” he says. A pause, and then he adds, “May Andraste watch over you in your travels.”

“This will hardly be a dangerous excursion, though if she’d like to spectate a _ball_ , she’s more than welcome. I am an excellent dancer. And Lady Montilyet is doing an admirable job of tamping down my _wilder_ tendencies, Sacha,” says Leonid, picking up his bow and slinging it across his shoulder as they start across the soft snow toward the main courtyard. “She’s insisted – well, it was apparently Enchanter Vivienne’s idea, which is why I’m too afraid to complain very loudly about the notion – that I return to my _original_ hair colour. For the sake of seeming respectable, at least at first glance. And I’m not permitted to _have my way_ with any of the attendees at the ball. Or, Josephine said, _the servants_. And only three glasses of wine. Three, Sacha!”

“That’s two more than I would have recommended,” says Sacha, face creased with a concern so _very_ near the real thing that someone else might have mistaken it for genuine. “You do struggle to hold your drink, Leonid.”

He laughs, then, into the cold, gray air. Reaches and thoughtlessly brushes some snow from the curves of Sacha’s armour. “Now, now, I may be better suited to dazzling minor Ferelden nobility than brokering treaties or being very tactful, but you must give credit where it’s due. When it _matters_ , I am perfectly well-behaved.”

“Relatively well-behaved,” Sacha amends.

“If _I_ can be even relatively well-behaved, Sacha, then surely you can agree to not take any _stupid risks_. It may be against our natures, but we can certainly strive for that much,” Leonid says. They pass the tavern and head toward the stairs. The lower courtyard is full of horses and wagons and soldiers who shine in their armour, even in the gray light of morning. The air, cold though it is, buzzes with a latent energy. This is their first major push toward fighting against the ancient magister who would see them all dead. This is the first step toward what must, they all hope, be victory.

And while Leonid has every faith in the Herald, he also understands this: that victory comes at a cost. That triumph is not without _payment_. That escaping evil requires sacrifice, whether the evil is larger than the world or as petty as a man playing at being a minor deity in a white-spired city.

“I’ll be careful,” Sacha agrees. At the bottom of the stairs, he turns toward the gathering of forces near the gatehouse, where Eloise waits by their prancing horses.

Leonid pauses long enough to blow her a kiss, which she mimes at swatting away, before reaching out to catch Sacha’s elbow. “I mean it,” Leonid repeats, leaving fingerprints on the polished metal trim.

Sacha nods, a firm motion. Again, his stare softens. “Your concern for my well-being –” he begins.

“Tell _no one_ ,” Leonid says, distant heat prickling at the skin of his neck – because, _yes_ , he might be concerned but that’s hardly a reason to go about announcing it. Or to admit to it. “No one, Sacha. Even if you’re captured by Venatori and they want to know _all about me_ , you can’t tell them. I insist.”

Sacha’s lips twitch. “Of course,” he says, slow. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“ _Good_ ,” says Leonid. He hovers still at Sacha’s side, chest tight, throat an ache. Despite that, Leonid shoots his friend a bright smile, one that is as painted as an Orlesian mask, and adds, “And when we next meet, I will tell you _all_ of the noble gossip. We’ve been so cut off from Marches scandals, Sacha, and you know Marchers do insipid drama better than most. I expect a bevy of fine, sordid tales – the sort that are perfect for retelling over drinks.”

That is the future he will insist upon: tossing back some of the Inquisition’s wretched ale while he reenacts the latest gossip out of Ansburg, Sacha laughing while Eloise shakes her head. He will hold it firmly in his mind until it becomes reality. Surely, he is permitted as meager a wish as this: to see everyone he cares for to the other side of this safely. To see them through this winter.

“I will look forward to that, Leonid,” says Sacha, smiling in kind. If Leonid squints, he might be able to notice that the very tips of Sacha’s ears have reddened, though perhaps he can blame that on the cold. All the same, Sacha’s shoulders straighten as he turns back toward the retinue with which he’ll be travelling, a collection of horses and wagons heavy with canvas tents and crates no doubt full of the armour they’ll need in the Approach.

It’s time, then; like that, the moment has arrived. “Until then,” says Leonid. He releases Sacha’s elbow and takes off through the crowd milling about the courtyard before temptation sees him linger any longer. He knows that Basten’s company is meeting near the stables. He would say another farewell before the Inquisitor speaks and the courtyard empties. Before the world spirals out of control again.

Far too many realities crowd at his mind, of what was and what is and what might be, and all of them loom large and dark. They are all things he can’t shoot or drink his way through, insistent darknesses hounding the edges of his thoughts. But, he thinks, the memory of arms tucked around his shoulders and the curve of a jaw resting against his forehead may yet carry him through. May give him a beacon for at least the day.

Leonid tucks the thought in all its fragile softness away as soon as his stare falls on Basten, who grins at him across the sea of soldiers readying themselves for their journeys.

Best to hold onto _this_ , he thinks. To remember _this_.

He smooths the worry from his face, a practiced gesture. He can smile his way through just about anything, and he’s spilled enough weakness into the gray light of morning to last a lifetime. From now until they all meet again, he’ll focus on what lies ahead: champagne, a very ornate outfit, and a comtesse to impress into submission. Perhaps a rule or two to break, he thinks resolutely, despite the Ambassador’s insistence. If he’s sacrificing his _hair_ , he’d best get something in return.

For now, though, he has a Qunari to bid farewell to – and there is _just_ the right shadowy alcove past the kitchens for the task. Better that than seeing the first wave of soldiers ride across the expansive bridge toward their respective charges. If his throat is tight around the first words he says to Basten, his companion is kind enough to say nothing – kinder still when he helps Leonid forget entirely about the distant trumpets that ring even inside the castle and that mean his friends ride into the distance and to fates unknown. Something lost in the hot immediacy of the present, which is infinitely better than the deafening _potential_ of the future. Always this instead of that, he thinks, as Basten’s warm palms peel him out of his snow-damp clothes. This.

*

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was prompted, really, by [the phenomenal art](http://weyrbound.tumblr.com/post/128659232456/mstigergun-requested-sacha-hugs-so-i-sketched-him) [weyrbound](http://weyrbound.tumblr.com) made of this scene -- which, if memory serves, started on evening when we were discussing our ( _very_ distantly related) Trevelyans and also their many feelings and basically Sacha being lovely and Leonid being broken. I put the print I've made of her work on my desk while writing, and it absolutely drove the heart of this fic. I can't explain how fortunate I am to work with someone as talented and insightful as weyr. Let's just say that I count my lucky stars that she's become my friend. LUCKY STARS: I AM COUNTING YOU.
> 
> More thanks to [enviouspride](http://enviouspride.tumblr.com), as usual, for her help! With additional and special thanks to [Caitlin](http://caedharlowe.tumblr.com), who is my resident Qunlat expert and helped Stacey and I sort out what, precisely, to name Basten's mercenary company. Fandom networking, friends! It's a glorious thing!


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